The Difference Between Aha and Oy Vey

By Nancy Davidoff Kelton

My mother used to say that good things take a long time to develop. Yes! She said that when I told her about my personal and work struggles. With writing, she reminded me that revising, submitting, acquiring rejections, and doing those again and again were required.

Becoming a playwright after 50 years of writing essays and books for publication is a good thing. Nay, a great thing.

At the book launch for my memoir, Finding Mr. Rightstein, I was particularly engaged reading the sections about the mental illness in my family, my conflicts with the members, and about my very blind dates and relationships with Wrongstein men. I pictured these experiences on a stage.

I love the theater. My parents took me to plays in Buffalo, our hometown, and at least once a year to New York for long weekends to see two or three shows. I had no interest in acting. Watching what happened on stage thrilled me.

I love writing dialogue. My first essay, Lunchroom, published in 1973 in an underground magazine when I taught in a Lower East Side public school, was almost all a dialogue between two first grade teachers arguing over which one’s pupils were doing better in their Think-and-Do Books.

I hear voices. If I weren’t a writer, I would probably be in a padded cell.

I continued to discover how much more there is to a play than dialogue. This includes behavior, gestures, and silences. Some sections work better if they are fleshed out or tightened. Some should be deleted. It takes time, many readings, much listening, stepping back, and seeing that not everything on the page is needed. Some things are ho hum, some take me and the characters away from the story and emotion, and some go on too long.

I wrote my play, as I write essays and books, with an urgency and a desire to say what I wished to say for myself. One day, I was giddy, feeling that it was funny and poignant. The next day, plagued with self-doubt, I wanted to throw it out.

I squirmed through three readings in my living room, two with professional directors and actors, feeling more vulnerable and exposed than I am with the publication of my essays and books when I am not in the same room with those reacting to my work. Each time I went back to the drawing board, I saw how playwriting is a much longer, more arduous process than essay writing.

I submitted the play to festivals and theaters including the Jewish Repertory Theatre of Western New York because much of the action takes place in Buffalo. I hadn’t lived there since childhood and did not know Sharon, the artistic director, but I heard she was nice, easy to work with, and wanted plays about older women.

Sharon liked my play. She scheduled a virtual reading, put me in touch with the director and cast, and suggested I replace the opening monologue with an inciting scene that would grab the audience and ignite the action. She thought it could have a stronger ending. I read new critically acclaimed plays and reread those of O’Neil, Albee, and Williams, replaced my opening, and thought about the ending. It needed something. I wasn’t sure what.

I knew about 40 of the 135 people who registered. Some brought family and friends. I got positive comments and suggestions for revisions at the talkback and in emails. Sharon wanted to continue the journey, but she retired and moved to another city. Her successor wanted to work with his own writers.

I continued tweaking the play and submitting it. It was ignored. rejected, and accepted. Sections had staged readings at Equity Library Theater in New York, the Woodside Players of Queens, and the ESP Theatre in Frederick, Maryland. After more revisions and getting clarity on what was not working and sounding ho hum, I saw I had to make changes in several scenes towards the end. I made them more revealing and poignant. I arrived at truths and insights that went deeper. The play comes to a touching, quiet Aha.

The full-length play won Long Beach (CA) Playhouse’s New Works Festival 2023. I had a staged reading and talkback there on April 1, 2023, which exceeded my expectations. Three sections were accepted for staged readings at Spark Theatre in New York. At the final rehearsal for a March 2025 Spark reading, the tech staff suggested we use flashing lights at the ending. We did, but I didn’t think it was necessary. I got to a satisfying, relatable ending without needing anything from outside.

Play writing is exciting. And challenging. The revisions are up to me. My passion trumps my fears. Some days, it takes forever to get going; other days, I dive in.

Perhaps my grandchildren will pick me up at an assisted living facility for the opening night production. Joel Grey directed Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish in his 80s, not knowing Yiddish. Hard work does not scare me. Not having work I love does.